


Later

by Bookwormpride



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Let Jasper Have A Good Cry 2K18, She's been through so much, Sisterly Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 13:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormpride/pseuds/Bookwormpride
Summary: Jasper and the Betas are used to saying goodbyes.





	Later

Jasper ran her fingers through her hair, gripping at the roots and turning the already naturally messy mop into a full on disaster as she paced across the cubby room floor.

“You’re gonna pull all your hair out if you keep doing that,” Skinny said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “And I don’t think the elites will find a bald quartz very impressive.”

“What do I even say to them?” Jasper worried aloud, seeing Skinny sigh at hearing the question for the dozenth time that day. “I’m not an elite! I don’t know what they talk about! What if we run into Pink Diamond? What if-”

“You’re not gonna run into Pink Diamond,” Skinny assured her boredly. “She’s probably on her moonbase or meeting with strategists or consulting with the other Diamonds, she’s not running around Earth while a war is on.”

“And you don’t gotta say anything to the elities, you heard Condor,” Carnelian said, laying on her back in the cubby above Skinnys with her head hanging out the side and her feet up against the wall. “‘ _You filthy Beta better not embarrass me, no speaking, no moving, I don’t even want you looking around while we’re out or I’ll shatter you into a million pieces and chuck your shards across the canyon you came from_!’” She exaggerated in a bad impression of their Agates voice.

“I just- it feels wrong that I’m going without all of you,” Jasper said, more subdued then before as she looked around at the Betas sitting before her. “ _We_ won that battle, it wasn’t just me.”

She remembered the fight a few days before - up to her knees in mud and the sky a dark grey above them; the clanging of metal against metal, the shouts of Homeworld gems and traitors alike, the resounding pops followed by puffs of fog as gems around her were dissipated.

During that fight Skinny had stopped a fusion from stabbing her in the back, and Red had taken down three traitor quartzes single handedly. Mask had wrestled Carnelians gem out of the grip of a Larimar about to bubble and send her away, and the triplets had fought back a whole Crystal Gem backup crew from ambushing them before they even got into the battle.

It was a team effort, every fight the Betas won was. And yet Jasper was continually the one that was commended, that was given honors, that was now being rewarded for their most recent victory by being taken to meet some of the most elite gems in Pink Diamonds court by their Agate.

It didn’t feel fair, she didn’t want the praise if the rest of the Betas got none.

“Look Halves,” Skinny said, calling Jasper by the nickname given to her in reference to her half-sized gem. She pushed herself up. “You’re the Beta gems wanna see, so you’ve gotta go and show them that we’re not useless Off Colors, that we’re strong and capable and we’re gonna fight for Pink Diamond as hard as any other soldier. Go for us. Impress them, _for us_.”

“I wish you could go,” Jasper muttered. “You’re a lot better at this stuff then me.”

Skinny gave a crooked smile. “I got the brains you got the brawns, luckily the elites will _probably_ only wanna look at you and not have a conversation. So,” She concluded, hands on Jaspers shoulders. “You’ve gotta at least look like you didn’t just come straight from the battle, c’mon, bend down.”

She was brushing her fingers through Jaspers chin length hair and putting it back into some semblance of neatness when the door to the cubby room hissed open and Condor Agate stepped in, arms behind her back and chin raised primly. The Betas quickly stood and saluted, though she barely glanced over them before her eyes landed on Jasper.

“Nine x K, are you ready to go?” She asked.

“Yes, Condor,” Jasper answered.

“Do I need to remind you that today, more than ever, you are not to speak unless spoken to? Nor will you pester any of the gems we meet,” She said. Jasper nodded along patiently, arms still raised in salute. “You will follow my every order, and will stay in my sight at all times? Correct? Or are you not prepared to go on this foray?” Condor said.

“Yes, I am, Condor Agate.” Jasper agreed.

“Come on then,” And she exited the room without a backward glance to make sure Jasper was following.

Jasper took a deep breath, feeling like a bolder was suddenly weighing on her chest, and looked at the rest of the Betas uncertainly.

“Go,” Skinny whispered, pushing Jasper forward roughly.

Jasper gulped. “See you later,” she murmured back before quickly hurrying to catch up with Condor at the warp pad.

 

Jasper doged the Azurites blade and lunged in too close for her to swing, slamming the flat of her helmet down on her head and feeling her form give. The material sword she had been wielding fell to the grassy ground with a thud, alongside her dormant gem.

She was about to bring the heel of her boot down on the deep blue stone when a white blur rolled across the ground past her and she turned to watch it. Skinny uncurled from her spindash, using the momentum to throw herself at the Spinel in front of her, knocking her to the ground and bringing her spear down through the Spinels neck.

They both looked up when they heard a familiar voice shout, “get offa me you pebble, I’m gonna-”

Across the field Carnelian was struggling against a Bismuth easily three times her size. Jasper and Skinny didn’t waste a moment before taking off in a run, pushing through any gem that got in their way.

Jasper jumped in and pulled the Bismuth off Carnelian, tossing her as if she weighed no more than a few pounds despite being nearly Jaspers size. Skinny threw her spear through her stomach, finishing her off before she even hit the ground.

“You okay?” Jasper asked Carnelian, who was dusting herself off.

“Fine,” She said with annoyance. “I could’ve handled it.”

Skinny ruffled her hair. “We look out for each other.”

“More like you look out for _me_ because you think I can’t fight,” Carnelian complained.

“Nine x H, nine x P,” Carnelian and Skinny snapped to attention at their Agates call from the edge of the battlefield where she was surrounded by several armed guards. She called out a few more of the Betas designations before instructing them, “you’re needed to join the fight at the Sky Spire, get to the nearest warp pad.”

“Stars, I wonder what's going on over there that they’re in such bad shape they want us,” Carnelian said.

“They’re probably getting wiped out and we’re gonna be thrown in as a last resort,” Skinny said sarcastically.

“Betas, lets go!” Condor yelled impatiently.

“See you later, Halves,” Carnelian said, slapping Jasper on the thigh - the highest point she could reach - as she ran past.

“Well, try not to get shattered,” Skinny said to Jasper, slowly walking away backwards.

“I could say the same about you,” Jasper answered.

“Oh please, I’m fast, those traitors can’t lay a hand on me,” Skinny reminded her. “See ya later,”

“See you,” Jasper said back, a familiar uneasiness in her chest at the promise of those words.

There was never any guarantee she would see any of her Kindergarten mates later, or ever again, and many times she didn’t as their already-small numbers dwindled with every battle. But there was hardly time for lengthy goodbyes in the middle of a war - sometimes she couldn’t even remember what the last words she said to one of her kin were before they were shattered or taken by the Crystal Gems.

It was easier to make hopeful promises of later, then to try to say everything that needed to be said in a short time.

Jasper jumped back into the fray, taking down a Kunzite and a Tigers Eye in one fluid movement, and in the distance she heard the warp pad flare, taking the chosen Betas away.

 

The Betas were unusually quiet, even for after battle.

“Hey Mitts, Skinny,” Jasper greeted, hoisting herself up into one of the cubbies currently occupied by three Betas all huddled together, a tangle of striped limbs and wild white hair. “Carnelian, nice job dissipating that Jade back there,” She said, lifting the small red gem into her lap to make room to sit.

Carnelian managed a grateful smile in return but Jasper knew her heart wasn’t in it, the last other surviving Carnelian had been shattered back in the battle, leaving Carnelian the only one of her cut.

“And where were you, Skinny? I was too busy cracking an entire troop of rebels to notice,” Jasper teased lightly.

“Oh you know, dissipating two fusions, an Amazonite, and a traitor Amethyst, just the usual,” Skinny said with mock casualness.

Even the friendly banter between them was hard to keep up and soon Skinny put her head on Jaspers shoulder and Jasper found herself leaning against Mitts’ side. Looking around the cubby room she seen most of the remaining Betas in similar positions, a few cradling their dissipated mates in their hands. They had lost a lot in the battle, more than they had since the initial wipe out in the Kindergarten the day they emerged.

The calm didn’t last long as the door to the cubby room slid open, and Condor Agate strode in, whip already looped and crackling with electricity in her hand. The Betas scrambled out of their cubbies, standing in a line before Condor with their arms in salute all the while exchanging apprehensive looks when their eyes met.

Condors expression was stoney, almost unreadable except for the rage in her eyes and the slight downturn of her mouth.

“Homeworlds forces have lost the Ziggurat to the rebels,” She informed them, her voice cold. In her hand the whip sparked in response to her mood causing the Betas to shift nervously, they had all experienced a lashing before and weren’t looking forward to repeating the experience.

Condor unfurled the whip, pulling it taut between her hands as she began to pace. “Because, for some reason the Betas fell back, leaving Yellow Diamonds Facet L-one squad and the Prime Amethysts to fight on their own, and to no one's surprise they quickly became overwhelmed.”

She paused, turning to the Betas again. “Now, I know _I_ didn’t give any order to retreat, so where did it come from?” She wondered with feigned surprise. “And _why_ would you _incompetent_ Off Color clods think you should follow an order that didn’t come directly. From. _Me_?” She hissed through gritted teeth.

Jasper glanced at Skinny out of the corners of her eyes, noticing her barely concealed fear. It had been her who suggested the retreat when she saw how many of their numbers they were losing. No one had disagreed when she said they should leave as they all knew they couldn’t continue to fight with so few.

“Nine x C!” Condor shouted. Mask straightened with a flinch. “Who gave the order?”

Mask shifted uneasily. “W-we had lost so many soldiers, C-Condor Agate, we couldn’t keep going or we would have-”

“I don’t care how many of you are dissipated or _shattered_ , you are to fight to the last gem standing!” Condor shouted. “Nine x N, who told you to retreat?”

Red couldn’t meet her eyes as she spoke. “I don’t know, I just seen everyone- everyone leaving and I followed,” She lied.

“If none of you will tell me who gave the order I will punish all of you,” Condor warned dangerously.

Skinnys cringed and opened her mouth.

“I did, Condor Agate,” Jasper intervened before she could speak.

Condors eyes snapped to Jasper and her expression twisted. “Of _course_ it was you, nine x K,” She said. “You think you’re _so_ important, huh? You think you’re above the rest of these defects. You even think you’re above _me_ , don’t you? At the front, _now_!”

“Halves,” Skinny whispered as Jasper began to step up. Jasper lightly waved her off.

In front of the lineup of quartzes Jasper folded her arms into salute facing Condor.

“I don’t care that you’re Homeworlds hero,” Condor said, beginning to circle Jasper slowly. “I don’t care that you’ve got a few victories under your sleeve. You are _nothing_ but another Off Color, you are not special, you are not _important_ . That is why you’re under my command, that’s why you take orders from _me_ . _Take_ orders, not _give_ them, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Condor Agate,” Jasper agreed.

“Maybe you’ll remember this next time you think of stepping out of line,” Condor said quietly, standing back and raising her whip.

The whip cut across her chest, her arms, her back, her cheek, each hit stinging and followed by the sharp jolt of electricity. She stayed quiet and stood tall for as long as she could, her hands in fists at her side as she began to shake from the shocks to her form and the pain of the lashing, until her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, staying there for the rest of the whipping.

Finally the whip stilled at Condors side, and after staring at Jasper scornfully for a moment she let it fade in a sparkle of light. She crouched in front of Jasper, roughly grabbing her chin and forcing her face up to meet her eyes.

“What will you not do again?” She asked.

“Give an order,” Jasper mumbled, panting both from pain and the exertion of trying to hold her form together while it wanted to give out.

“And you are?”

“An Off Color,” Jasper said.

“And you are not?”

“Important or special,” Jasper said.

“Thats right,” Condor agreed, tapping Jasper on the cheek a few times before finishing with a sharp slap. She stood, and Jasper swayed, barely managing to stay upright. “As for the rest of you,” She said to the Betas behind Jasper. “The next time you follow an order that doesn’t come from me this will happen to _all_ of you.”

“Yes, Condor Agate,” The Betas coursed.

She fixed them in one last stern stare before turning on her heel and leaving. As soon as the door slid shut behind her the Betas rushed forward, surrounding Jasper. Skinny dropped to her knees beside her and Carnelian hovered nervously.

“You clod, what were you thinking?” Skinny scolded softly, gently cupping Jaspers face and examining the red welts across her cheeks. “I was gonna tell her it was me, you know.”

“You did the right thing, I wasn’t gonna let you be punished for it,” Jasper mumbled, her voice strained. She let out a low groan. “Besides, you take forever to reform, we can’t afford to have anyone else out for long right now.”

Skinny nodded solemnly, her eyes still troubled and her mouth drawn in a thin line. “Be quick,” She said.

Black pots started to fill Jaspers vision. “See you later,” She said, and with that she gave up her form, knowing without a doubt that Skinny would be there to catch her gem.

 

Jasper pushed through the crowd of panicked gems all headed in the same direction, using her height and size to her advantage to see better where they were going and clearing a path for the rest of the Betas behind her.

The order had come to retreat while the Betas had been locked in vicious battle with the Crystal Gems. It took every last ounce of self-control that Jasper had in her to follow orders and leave when all she wanted was to rip every single traitor limb from limb. They had shattered Pink Diamond, _her_ Diamond, they needed to pay, they _deserved_ to suffer, and she was going to get her hands on Rose Quartz and see Pink Diamond avenged if it was the last thing she ever did.

But the remaining Diamonds were planning something - an attack that would end the war once and for all, and every Homeworld gem needed to get off Earth or risked getting caught in the crossfire.

“Nine x K,” She heard, and her head turned to see her Agate pushing through the crowd towards her. “You are to retreat with Yellow Diamonds armada, there is a ship in facet five, warp there and get on it!” She shouted over the noise of gems yelling and ships taking off. “The rest of you Betas, get to a ship, go, quickly,” She stressed before disappearing into the crowd again.

Jasper looked at the line of her Kindergarten mates behind her, appearing just as confused and scared as she felt.

Skinny, the one directly behind her, met her eye. “I’ll find us a ship,” She assured her.

Jasper nodded. “Okay,” She agreed. “Okay, hurry.”

“Yeah,” Skinny said.

Jasper still couldn’t seem to move, rooted in place as something in her protested leaving the rest of the Betas and going her own way. For the first time in any of their lives they were leaving the planet they had emerged from, they were going to Homeworld and soon would be taking their true place in gem society - the future they had hoped for when the war was over was coming true, and it felt horribly wrong to start it separately when they had been together since the beginning.

“See you later,” She said, her voice sounding distant and hollow in her ears.

Skinny nodded once sharply, looking worried as another ship nearby took off. “See you later,” She said.

Finally Jasper managed to force her legs to go and she took off in a run towards the warp pad on the other side of the field.

A few minutes later she was huddled in with a couple dozen hundred unfamiliar gems in one of Yellow Diamonds ships as it took off, rising from the ground slowly and pulling away from Earth's atmosphere.

Jasper looked out the nearest window as the blue and green planet - _her_ planet, the only place she had ever known - fell away.

* * *

Jasper found herself wishing she had unshapeshifted her stomach before leaving the house as it began to twist nauseatingly. Her whole form shook as she stood on the sand looking up at the gleaming pink ship descending from the sky over the ocean.

“You ready, Jasp?” Amethyst asked beside her, picking up on her anxiety.

“No,” Jasper said honestly. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead.

Amethyst patted her leg. “It’s gonna be okay, dude,” She said.

“Yeah, they missed you!” Steven assured on her other side.

The ship touched down at the edge of the sand and a moment later the door fell open. Piles of Amethysts pushed out, tearing across the beach as Amethyst broke into a run as well.

“Emmy!” An Amethysts with curly hair yelled, catching Amethyst as she jumped at her.

“Jay!” She shouted. “Ahh, I can’t believe you guys are finally here!”

With the last of the Amethysts out of the ship and showering Amethyst with affection and excitement, a different crowd of mis-matched figures stood in the doorway.

Her sisters, Amethyst had called them, as Jasper had started to think of them as once she learned what the word meant. The Betas.

Jasper swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry and her eyes stinging as the small group stepped onto the beach, staring at her with wide eyes and awed faces.

Without feeling it Jasper took a step forward, and another and another, until they met somewhere in the middle and stopped just short of colliding, almost chest-to-chest. Skinny stood in front of her, Carnelian at her side, the triplets behind them, all the remaining Betas crowded together.

“Halves,” Skinny whispered with a crooked smile.

Jasper covered her mouth with a hand to stifle a sob. She hadn’t heard that voice in thousands of years, she hadn’t heard that nickname in just as long.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re actually happy to see me,” Skinny joked lightly, her voice shaking. She watched for a moment longer as the tears filled Jasper's eyes and began to fall then finally pulled her into an embrace, and the rest of the Betas quickly piled on.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jasper cried, clutching at her. She was sorry for leaving them, was sorry for believing it when her Agate on Homeworld told her they were dead, was sorry for letting her convince Jasper that they deserved what they got, for thinking such terrible things about them, for thinking she was better, for trying to forget them, for a million other things she couldn’t seem to voice. Just the word _sorry sorry sorry_ over and over again falling from her lips.

“It’s okay,” Carnelian promised, hugging her legs.

Jasper found herself kneeling in the sand, her sisters wrapped around her as she cried loud, ugly sobs that she thought might have been building up for thousands of years, unreleased until then because it had never been safe - hadn’t been safe to be vulnerable, to let her guard down, to grieve. Her sisters had once been her safety, and without them she had had nowhere and no one to turn to with her weakness, so instead she had kept it in for five thousands years.

Skinny gently cupped Jaspers face, brushing the tears from her cheeks with her the pads of her thumbs. “Are you okay? Amethyst said you were corrupted for a while.”

Jasper couldn’t answer her, unable to find any words except, “you’re here,” She whispered. It was like seeing ghosts or like being a dream that she would surely wake up from and be crushed to find it wasn’t real.

“We’re here, we’re not going anywhere,” Skinny promised.

“We couldn’t believe you were alive when Amethyst told us,” Carnelian said. “We thought you didn’t make it to the ship in time during the retreat.”

Jasper sobbed again thinking of the unfairness of it all. For thousands of years she had been alone on Homeworld, praised as the Quartz That Could yet never truly accepted as belonging there, she took both punishment and victory by herself, the only thing that drove her forward being her determination to avenge Pink Diamond - all the while her sisters were alive, a short travel at warp speed away, believing her to be dead too.

The Betas waited with endless patience as Jasper tried to get ahold of herself and began to calm, finally sitting back exhaustedly and looking around at the familiar faces around her.

“Look at your hair,” Carnelian said, pulling a piece over Jaspers shoulder and running it through her fingers.

“It’s so long you almost look like a real quartz,” Skinny teased.

Jasper laughed through the thickness in her throat. “I see you haven’t gained any muscles in the past five thousand years,” Jasper shot back weakly, dragging the heel of her hand across her cheeks.

“It’s there I just like to keep it subtle, surprise the enemy, ya know,” Skinny said with a sarcastic shrug.

She smiled and let Mask help her to her feet, still enfolded within the Betas circle as they began chattering excitedly and occasionally yelling back and forth with the Primes a few yards away.

It might have taken a few thousand years but they were together, and Jasper would do anything not to lose them again.

**Author's Note:**

> Jasper is my favorite character but I can never figure out how to write her, idec if this is ooc though because it's so self indulgent. I just want Jasper to have a family okay, let her be happy and loved.


End file.
